Dirty Pretty Things

For director Stephen Frears, the plight of
immigrants in London certainly isn't virgin
territory. He explored the subject with a bold
sensuality in 1985's "My Beautiful
Launderette." Frears returned (less
successfully) a couple of years later with
bombastic gusto in "Sammy and Rosie Get
Laid" (1987). But those pictures were made
during the frosty days of Margaret Thatcher.

In "Dirty Pretty Things," Stephen Frears
arrives in post-Thatcher London and
dauntlessly seizes on the delicate subject of
illegal immigrants--and he does it with a
stunning assurance. Frears opens us up to a
colorful world in which Chinese, Turks,
Africans and Indians, existing in the shadows
of mainstream life, find ingenious ways to
protect each other from the Immigration
authorities. But where most directors would
wring their hands over the misery and
exploitation of illegals, Frears seizes on their
drive rather than their despair. This gives "Dirty
Pretty Things" a vitality that's both audacious
and tragic.

Take Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is
a Nigerian doctor who was forced to flee his
homeland. He finds himself illegally working
two jobs as a cab driver and a night porter at a
hotel. Living in dread of being caught, he
befriends Senay (Audrey Tautou), a Muslim
chambermaid who is eventually forced to take
a job at a sweatshop, delivering sexual favors
to her boss in exchange for protection. Things
only get worse when Okwe discovers that, at
the hotel, human organs are being sold by
desperate donors trying to get passports and
money. "Dirty Pretty Things" is about how
Okwe and Senay keep their integrity despite
the extreme measures required to help them
escape.